Biden nominated Brink to Ukraine in April 2022, two months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. She was confirmed by voice vote on May 18, 2022, and she became the first Senate-confirmed ambassador to Ukraine since Marie Yovanovitch was recalled in 2019. Over the next three years she oversaw the delivery of American military and humanitarian help and pushed for anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine.
From 2008 to 2009, Brink served as the deputy director for southern European affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She then joined the United States National Security Council and from 2009 to 2010, she served as director for the Aegean and South Caucasus, where she helped coordinate U.S. foreign policy and advance U.S. interests with Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. In 2011, Brink returned to Georgia as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi.
Brink served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi from 2011 to 2014, and in the same role in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from 2014 until August 2015, when she became deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, a position she held until 2018. She speaks Russian, and by 2019 had received eight Department of State awards.[non-primary source needed]
In 2018, Foreign Policy reported that Brink was slated to be nominated as the US ambassador to Georgia, but the government rebuffed her due to alleged predisposition toward former Georgian President and then-opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili.
U.S. ambassador to Slovakia
In 2019, President Donald Trump nominated Brink to become the ambassador to Slovakia.
On April 25, 2022, Brink was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as the United States ambassador to Ukraine. On May 18, 2022, she was unanimously confirmed via voice vote of the Senate after Senator Chuck Schumer requested she be fast-tracked. She presented her credentials on May 30, 2022, and took office during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Her confirmation came the same day the U.S. embassy in Kyiv reopened after a three-month closure and filled a post that had been vacant since the resignation of Marie Yovanovitch in 2019.
During her time as ambassador, Brink was a supporter of reform in Ukraine regarding governmental corruption and forming lasting democratic institutions, a stance which was viewed unfavorably by some Ukrainian officials.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On July 22, 2022, Brink communicated the position of the United States that it would continue to "support Ukraine for as long as it takes." On July 26, she met with Jonathan Markovitch, the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv. In December, it was reported that she had met with aides of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in person to securely share the State Department's plans for his visit to the United States on December 23, 2022.
In April 2025, Brink made a social media post about a recent missile strike on Kryvyi Rih that received a sharp rebuke from Zelenskyy for omitting Russia's role in the strike. This incident, as well as another where she translated a message praising Trump for his cricism of Zelenskyy that was first posted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The post went viral in Ukraine and received many negative responses. This led to Zelenskyy pressuring for her to resign.
Brink stepped down as ambassador on April 10, 2025. She reportedly chose to resign due to disagreements with the Trump administration, pressure from Zelenskyy, and the toll of working in a war zone away from her family for nearly three years. Brink's resignation was seen as another upheaval amidst the State Department's reorientation away from Ukraine and towards Russia.
In a May 2025 interview with the New York Times, Brink said that the reason for her resignation was due to her opposition to the Trump administration's position on Ukraine, specifically the pressure that the Trump administration was placing on Ukraine and not on Russia.
The Detroit News reported that Brink was not registered to vote in the district in 2024. She reported on a financial disclosure form that in 2025 she owned four investment properties in Washington, D.C., two of which are valued between $1 million and $5 million. Her campaign responded that she leases out three of the homes, and that they brought in between $230,000 to $2.1 million in rent in 2025. Brink bought a riverfront home in Lansing a few weeks before launching her campaign in May 2025, and she became a registered voter in the district the next month.
Brink was defeated in the primary election by activist William Lawrence.
Personal life
Brink is the mother of two boys, and her husband, Nicholas Higgins, also works for the U.S. Foreign Service. The family currently lives in Lansing. In the summer of 2025, Brink was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer, which was removed successfully and did not necessitate chemotherapy.
↑U.S. Senate, "Statement of Bridget A. Brink Ambassador-Nominee to the Slovak Republic Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday, May 16, 2019", accessed November 5, 2019,
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